Photo: Bengt Nyman — Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
Jean-Pierre Sauvage
born 1944 · France · Born 1940 or later
Nobel Chemistry 2016
French supramolecular chemist at Strasbourg; pioneer of catenanes, knots and interlocked molecular machines.
Nobel-winning work
Sauvage devised a copper-templated strategy to link molecular rings into catenanes and threaded architectures, creating molecules whose parts can move relative to one another in a controlled way. These interlocked building blocks — the seed of molecular machines — earned him a share of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Fraser Stoddart and Ben Feringa.
Fields
Related topics
Molecular machines and molecular motion
Explore how molecular structures convert light, chemical fuel, or other inputs into controlled motion, and how chemists establish directionality, cycles, and work at the nanoscale.
Self-assembly, host–guest chemistry
Understand how noncovalent recognition organizes molecular components into assemblies, and how host cavities bind guests selectively through complementary shape, interactions, and solvent effects.